We sat up in that tree for a long time before Sean spoke again, the silence hadn't been awkward, but I was grateful for the start in conversation.
"Do you want to know what's happening to Ash?" he asked me, looking at me for the first time in a while.
"Yes," I said honestly. "But I don't want you to tell me anything if it makes you upset."
"I want to tell you," he replied. "I haven't been able to talk about it to anyone, not really. Everyone here knows... but its because of that no one talks about it. I need to talk about it."
"Then go ahead," I met his eyes. "I'll listen."
"Thank you," he offered a small smile. "I know it's probably become obvious to you, Ash is dying."
I took a deep breath, tears pricking my eyes. Hearing it like this, in plain words, that Ash is dying... God it hurt to hear that. A dead weight settled in my chest. Sean looked away from me, staring out over the trees again, but I couldn't look away from him.
"She's ill, very ill. When we were ten, our mother died... no," he gave a bitter laugh. "She was brutally slaughtered. Five hunters came to our home in Leeds... Ash, our mother and two others were the only ones home. Our mother answered the door and... they gutted her, right off the bat, no chance to defend herself. Ash was in the hall she saw the whole thing, right up to the beheading our mother was telling her to run."
I stared at him in horror. Ash saw all that... when she was ten? I couldn't even imagine it.
"That's when the two men came down, saw what happened and went nuts, killing the hunters, they were killed in the fight too. Ash... she just stood there, staring at our mother for a good half an hour before we got home and turned her away. It made her sick, she still wakes up screaming sometimes. She just never recovered, it's getting worse. We tried moving here, fresh start, but nothing works. Chances are all three of us'll be dead by next year."
"All three?" I whispered, tears running freely down my face. He turned and looked at me then, his face painfully void of emotion; it was like he'd just shut down.
"Ash, Patch and I," he said. "If Ash... if she goes then we won't survive it. She's my twin and Patch is her mate, we won't survive it."
"Sean I-" I didn't know what to say, what I could say.
Words would not make any of this better. I did the only thing I could think of doing, I threw my arms out and hugged him to me as hard as possible. Just as fast his arms were fastened around me and I was being crushed against his chest. I probably should have been afraid for my life considering a werewolf was squeezing me a little too hard, but it hurt too much seeing him like this for me to feel the physical pain of it. So I just held him as he shook silently.
We didn't make it back to the house until mid-afternoon. When we got back to the front there was a mini game of rugby going on. It looked like Ash, Amber, Kate and two other guys in their mid-twenties vs Patch, Mitchell, the boy who was with Amber earlier, a woman and two men in their thirties. Just about everyone else seemed to be watching.
I watched as Ash got the ball then was tackled to the ground by Patch, both of them laughing. Patch then threw the ball to one of the twenty year olds and kissed Ash while the rest of the game continued on around them. It was hilarious as Ash's father jumped over his daughter and her mate like it was nothing. I raised an eyebrow to Sean.
"This is a normal game," he laughed. "Do you know how to play?"
"Nope," I admitted. "I've never played rugby."
"Alright," he said. "Go stand with him." He pointed out a bald forty-some year old man cheering on the sidelines. "That's' Rick, Rick the egg man. He'll explain it perfectly, then you can join in."
"Okay," I laughed.
"Sean!" Ash called as she and Patch got up. "Come join us! Dads hammering us into the dirt!"
"On my way!" he called back, then looked at me. "Whenever you're ready."
"I'm on it," I grinned and shot of towards Rick as Sean ran onto the field.
Two hours and a dozen games later and we were back inside watching a movie. It was Ash, Patch, Sean and I watching some movie called 'New Moon'. I'd never heard of it, but it was hilarious. The three of them could not stop laughing at the werewolves in the movie and I couldn't help but fall in love with the blonde vampire guy, Jasper.
"Hey do you want to go shopping tomorrow?" Ash asked me during the huge fight scene. "We can take a train into Kingston."
"That would be brilliant," I said instantly. I couldn't wait to see as much of this time as possible. I had no idea what was going on, I could just as likely re-appear in my own world at any second, so every second here had to count.
"Ash," Sean looked at her.
"I'll be fine," she smiled.
"Ash," Patch looked to her too.
"Fine," she sighed. "If you want you two can stalk us around, but this is girl time, no interference."
"Deal," Patch kissed her forehead.
"Fine," Sean smiled a little.
So we watched the rest of the movie, ate then did nothing for the rest of the day, just talked about their time and mine. It was nice, doing nothing like this, though I felt that I should have been doing my part to help provide for these people who were being so kind to me. I asked Ash about helping out, but she just waved it off, telling me that I didn't have to worry about something like that.
Later, Sean and Ash went to talk and I played hide and seek with Jon, Amber and Kate. I met more and more of the werewolves around the place, and despite that none of them said much to me, they were all friendly. I soon found that I was terrible at hide and seek, despite that I knew the house, I didn't know if with furniture and kids sure knew where to hide.
I was settling, I loved this place. Despite how comfortable it was and how kind everyone was, I was still uneasy a lot of the time. How did I get here? How were the sparrows reacting to my disappearance? What did Ash mean by me not being human? There were so many things I just didn't understand. I half hoped that I could just live here peacefully and not find out the crazy reasons to explain what was happening... but at the same time, I knew that I'd find out soon enough.